Communication strategies for the 21st century by Metzger's New Media Practice Director.

So, how did the change in the media make for the strangest year (in my humble opinion) in the history of college football?

Simple -- more exposure for more teams.

This year's season has been one of the strangest ever. Kansas (yes, Kansas, a basketball power and football doormat) has a chance to play for a national championship this year. Nearly every team that has risen to #1 has been beaten. This didn't happen once, but over and over again, like never before. Here's why I think it's happening.

When I was growing up in the 70s, teams were lucky to get a couple of televised games a year. ABC-TV had the contract with the NCAA, and there was only so much time for college games. Teams that wouldn't attract a big national audience might not get a televised game all year.

Enter cable.

Suddenly, in the late 80s and early 90s, the major teams had most -- if not all -- games televised, and many lesser schools were getting significant television exposure. Rather than a total of 30-40 total games being televised each year, 30 or more games were being televised each week.

So why did this change college football? Exposure.

In the 1970s and before, an outstanding athlete realized that he needed to play for a major college to get any national television exposure (and, as a result, professional scout attention) at all. As a result, great players were willing to sit out their freshman and sometimes sophomore years to play at a major national powerhouse. Today, since so many teams get TV coverage, a great high school player can choose to go to a school that is not a traditional powerhouse, play immediately, even as a freshman, and still get a reasonable amount of TV exposure.

And look what's happened. This year alone, a Top-10 Michigan team got beat in the first week of the season by Appalachian State. Top Five teams like USC, Southern Florida, Ohio State, and Florida have all lost, and the list goes on. Personally, I think it's the ability for small, even unheard of, schools to attract and get exposure for athletes that felt they had to choose a larger, established school just a few years ago. This year, the all-time record for career rushing was set by a kid playing for Chadron State College in western Nebraska.

A major shift in college football, and it's just an example of what's going on just about everywhere... are you looking at what media changes mean to your company or your clients each and every day?

The CBS Evening News, the lowest rated evening network news broadcast, made headlines a few months ago when it announced that longtime Today Show host Katie Couric would take over the anchor desk in September. While the reception to the announcement was mixed, it certainly generated attention.

Now, CBS will become the first network to simulcast the nightly news on the Internet, a move that in our opinion could do more for viewership than Ms. Couric.

However, this raises more questions on the constantly changing media landscape. For example:

Network and local newscasts have always played off of one another to bolster rating for the local affiliates, and local news is usually one of the largest expenses of a local station's budget. Will this move add viewers that weren't watching at all (and expand the audience) or cannibalize the local stations?

The shows will also be available for on-demand download after the broadcast. The on-demand showings, according to reports, will not show commercials. Will viewers choose to wait an hour and watch the broadcast commercial-free, or choose instead the simulcast?

The news can often provide a lead-in to other programming, either syndicated, local or that evening's network line-up. If viewers move from the CBS Evening News to YouTube instead, what will that mean from a line-up standpoint?

An interesting move, and one that will be interesting to watch in the coming months.

According to Multichannel News, a rather suprising
source is about to begin offering guidance on appropriate media consumption
for kids -- Playboy
Enterprises. CEO Christie Hefner
recently announced a campaign designed to help parents learn to use
content-control systems and understand ratings so their children don't watch
programming meant for adults.

Our suggestion for the program's first guideline: Don't let your young children
watch the Playboy Channel.

And yes, the grammar in the headline is intentional (as in Apple's "Think Different" campaign).

We couldn't help but notice the new Apple ads featuring a guy in a suit (the PC) and the guy in the hoodie sweatshirt (the Mac). How far we've come from the famous 1984 ad.

Both ads, in our opinion, are great. But a deeper look reveals how consumers want to be engaged in 2006 vs. 1984. The earlier ad -- with the play on the famous novel, the artistic production, etc. -- is pure brand imagery. All you know at the end of that ad is that Apple has a different kind of computer you might want to check out. No specifics, just a hope that you'll want to be the girl with the hammer and not seated in the seemingly endless rows of drones.

In the new ads, Apple speaks to the consumer on a fairly intellectual level. The ad is stark, and production is minimal, but the characters engage in a discussion about real, tangible differences between Macs and PCs.

It shows that the era of advertising as pure creative is coming to a close. Clever is great, and ads should be interesting and entertaining. But consumers are now also looking for substance. They want some real discussion, not just puppies and cute kids running through fields on a sunny day over a lush music soundtrack.

OK, these are two of the BEST business magazines out there, and we realize that advertising in all media is hard. However, advertising that just plain makes us mad is not going to have a solid result for the advertiser.

Let's start with Fast Company. The last issue was, editorially, outstanding. But who agreed to let the US Postal Service put those stupid tabs on the lead pages to every section of the cover story? We think we might all FedEx our bill payments this month just to boycott the USPS for that nonsense. We're just glad that Lance rode for Discovery in his last year.

And Business 2.0...we clicked on an RSS feed and got an ad that we couldn't get around for almost 10 seconds. It was for some anti-virus or spy software, but we didn't click, so we're not sure. SHAME ON YOU! You're a great publication...don't act like that. Advertising like that on an RSS feed? We think we might just unsubscribe.

In the end, advertising should be compelling and interesting. If you act like a two-year-old throwing a temper-tantrum in a grocery store, you'll get a response much like the other shoppers in that store give that two-year-old. Make sure your sales team lives up to the standards of your editorial staff.

We'll respect and pay attention to your advertisers if they treat us like thinking adults. If not, it will just irritate us. Change your approach, please.

Ask any author (even James Frey) and they'll tell you getting on Oprah can take an obscure book to the bestseller list. We hoped to make a Sprint phone a bestseller with the help of a story in O, The Oprah Magazine.

Metzger Account Executive Ali Randall was recently interviewed by PR Week magazine regarding work she had done on behalf of Sprint to get a new phone featured in this important women's magazine. Note the pitch timeline at the end of the article...much like a sales professional, PR professionals don't always "sell" the story on the first try. The key is to keep working for your clients.

The interview:

Who was your client and what were your media goals?

Ali Randall: We do national consumer outreach for wireless provider Sprint. We were targeting gift guides, and Oprah Winfrey's magazine was an obvious priority because it's one of the top-selling lifestyle publications.

How did you reach out to the editors?

Randall: We worked by e-mail initially. It took some digging to figure out the right editor and some persistence before we got a response. We finally got a 20-minute meeting with the style editor in August at which we were able to show her one of the new phones, Samsung's A940, for the Sprint service.

You were pitching new personal technology, which tends to be aimed at an early-adopter audience. Did you have to tweak your content or approach to appeal to O's predominantly female, mass-market readership?

Randall: O doesn't feature a lot of tech products, so I sold this phone not just as a hip gadget, but also as a fashionable accessory for women. We highlighted that the phone has a swivel screen and a built-in camera/camcorder. We also provided them with high-resolution images that showcased its sleek design.

What was the impact of the hit?

Randall: The A940 ended up making a special holiday version of "the O List," which is a selection of recommended products that have caught the eye of Oprah and the editors at O. Sprint had never been featured in the magazine before, and since everything that Oprah Winfrey touches turns to gold, they were very pleased. This phone ended up as one Sprint's stronger sellers during the key holiday season. Plus this new relationship we've established with O's editors should help not only Sprint, but also all of our clients over the long term.

We noted yesterday that Comcast would make the ads available on their video on demand for digital customers, and here's a few sites that allow you to catch up on the action -- not the game, but the advertising action -- right from your office.

Most of the ads for movies were on the flat side. Fine ads, and a couple of the films looked good, but it's hard to get "out of the box" with ads like that.

The long musical production from Burger King left us scratching our heads a bit, especially from an advertiser that has shown over and over they're willing to push any envelop.

GoDaddy certainly gets a nod for getting some buzz going. One member of our party even grabbed a wireless laptop to see the unedited version of their ad on their site. We'll be watching for traffic reports on their site.

Just as we're settling in to enjoy Seattle and Pittsburgh square off, this article from Broadcasting & Cable reminds us just how much things have changed -- and continue to change quickly.

Comcast Digital Cable customers will be able to enjoy a special feature on video on demand after the game. The best plays? No. A post-game analysis? Wrong again. The commercials. As soon as the game's over, we'll be able to relive the thrilling soft drink/beer/software/web hosting moments over a cold one with our friends.

Given that we've read web hosting service Go Daddy had to resubmit their commercial more than a dozen times to gain network approval, maybe we'll tune in!